SHANGHAI — The city is glitz and shpritz. Ching-a-ling and bling is king. Clothes are furred and shirred. The splashy night sky is strobe lights, blinking neon, flashing signs, colored bulbs changing colors, electric pictures illuminating the heavens. The world’s second-tallest building (highest is in Dubai) opens shortly. They’ll outline it with laser lamps.
Shanghai, “Pearl of the Orient,” mainland China’s commercial center, the world’s largest populated city, the world’s busiest container port, is pure smash and dash. It looks like Donatella Versace.
I’ve been to this country many times.
My initial visit was when I flew on the first American plane after President Nixon. My husband was goodwill ambassador for Pan Am. That’s now gone. He’s now gone. What’s stayed is my memory. I remember my hotel room being bugged and strangers rifling through my things. Sometimes even before I’d left the room.
Even today — still they win. Take merchandising in the little local stores and alley shops. They quote insane prices. You bargain. You think you’ve won. Lotsa luck. Your multiple purchases get hauled into a taxi. But by some miraculous intervention — that last piece you think you’d cleverly haggled them down against their will? Forget it. The thing managed to unbelievably get off-loaded and just never find its way into your cab.
Also, forgetting the trash and cash, no matter how tacky and spiky, ain’t easy to find the sizes.
Foreigners here are predominantly Japanese, Korean or Western. You do not see larger Africans or Middle Easterners. Since the Chinese have mostly tiny behinds, in the States I’m a “small,” here I’m viewed as Gulliver and they haul out the “extra larges.”
Their next generation is going to rule the world. It’s scary. I visited a Chinese kindergarten. Arriving with nannies and drivers, kids age 5 wore fur vests, leather jackets, cashmere sweaters.
Outside the entrance were troughs — sinks with liquid soap, paper towels. The mandate was hands must be washed before entering.
Inside the door, a nurse inspects each child and gives him or her a color-coded chip that determines health, cleanliness, well being.
And then, gymnastics. With videos and records blaring to keep time, with teachers leading, pupils line up in formation and do military precision marching and exercising.
Behavior is rigid. Want to raise your hand? No fingers waggling. No limp arm. Done with exactitude, it’s hand straight up, shoulder height.
With the country’s one-child-only rule, grandparents have only one grandchild to spoil. These kids are called “xiong haizi.” Holy bears. Little emperors. Obsessive academic pint-size tyrants are praised.
As for parties, no fanfare this week. New Year’s Eve was tame.
The locals only go wack-a-doodle for later-this-month’s Chinese New Year.
All that really excited everyone was the annual goat gala. Goat, said to be “warming,” gives, they say, “yang.” Energy.
One popular event was the 26-year-old bell-ringing ceremony at Longhua Temple. It’s believed clanging 108 times absolves sin and brings good luck. Each attendee gets a lantern.
Midnight about 10,000 were lit.
2013 and 2014 combined make 1314 or “yi san yi san,” which sounds like the Chinese word for “forever.”
What all that means, I have no idea. I only know “forever” here does not mean price. Yesterday leftover merchandise got slashed 60 percent.
President Xi Jinping — whose new catch phrase is “Chinese Dream” — preached frugality.
Days ago, visiting some eatery, he sprung for his own snack of pork buns and stir-fried pig livers. The dude’s a sport. His tab hit the equivalent of $3.40.
Meanwhile, shove frugality. The Chinese are buying up America.
The “Shanghai Daily” reports their smart rich “are snapping up property in the bankrupt crumbling Motor City of Detroit.”
But they can’t import many more cars into Shanghai’s jammed streets.
Permits for only 8,000 get auctioned each month. There are 12 metro lines, 273 stations, wall-to-wall taxis and 1,000 bus lines.
And by tomorrow — one less visitor — me!
So am I schlepping back here next New Year’s? Not for all the tea in Shanghai.